Yeast Propogation

I want to start cutting my cost I've already made the leap to all grain. Now I want to farm some yeast. If I make 2 starters of 1 liter each and pitch 1/2 vial of white labs yeast into each can I make 2 batches of brew from that or do I have to propogate higher?

voodoochild7 said:

I want to start cutting my cost I've already made the leap to all grain. Now I want to farm some yeast. If I make 2 starters of 1 liter each and pitch 1/2 vial of white labs yeast into each can I make 2 batches of brew from that or do I have to propogate higher?

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I kind of do this. I make a single large starter (about 1.5L) out of one wyeast smack-pack. On brew-day, I divide that starter up into two portions. One portion is pitched into the current brew, and the other portion is saved in the fridge. I've said on here before that I pitch "half" and save "half", but in actuality it's more like pitching 75% and saving 25%.

The next time I want that yeast (within the next two months) I pull out the 25% portion and make a new 1.5L starter with it. Again, pitch 75% and save 25%.

I've done this a few times. Once I even skipped making a starter with my 25% portion and just pitched that directly into a brew. It worked fine.

A lot of people save their trub, but I find the large, saved starter to be less of a hastle and more managable than having huge tubs of trub in the fridge.

-walker

Walker-san said:

A lot of people save their trub, but I find the large, saved starter to be less of a hastle and more managable than having huge tubs of trub in the fridge.

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It's pretty easy to "wash" the yeast slurry out of the trub: my procedure, briefly, is...

Pour about a cup of boiled & cooled water onto the sediment in the bucket or carboy, pour it all into a sanitized mason jar, chill for an hour or so.

It will seperate into three layers: water on top, yeast slurry in the middle, trub on bottom.

I pour off the water, pour the slurry into another sanitized jar, and dump the trub.

Then chill again...

After 2-3 cycles of chilling & seperating, you're left with maybe 8 ozs of slurry, which stores nicely in a sealed beer bottle.

Of course the easiest way to resuse yeast is to just pitch another batch of wort on the cake leftover from primary, if you're organized enough to do that.

Ummm... yeah.. exactly... this is a lot more hastle than my method which is to sanitize a soda bottle and pour part of my starter into it.

cweston said:

It's pretty easy to "wash" the yeast slurry out of the trub: my procedure, briefly, is...

Pour about a cup of boiled & cooled water onto the sediment in the bucket or carboy, pour it all into a sanitized mason jar, chill for an hour or so.

It will seperate into three layers: water on top, yeast slurry in the middle, trub on bottom.

I pour off the water, pour the slurry into another sanitized jar, and dump the trub.

Then chill again...

After 2-3 cycles of chilling & seperating, you're left with maybe 8 ozs of slurry, which stores nicely in a sealed beer bottle.

Of course the easiest way to resuse yeast is to just pitch another batch of wort on the cake leftover from primary, if you're organized enough to do that.

Click to expand...

Walker-san said:

Ummm... yeah.. exactly... this is a lot more hastle than my method which is to sanitize a soda bottle and pour part of my starter into it.

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A little more, anyway. You do this after you rack, so you've already got iodophor or whatever mixed up. The pouring off of the water ant trub takes about, oh, 1 minute.

I may try your way with a wit I have coming up--only problem is, there's really nothing to do with that yeast strain except brew another wit. Maybe I'll keep some slurry, and if SWMBO really likes the wit (which I think she might--she likes NB's American Wheat with orange peel and coriander alot), brew another batch immediately, otherwise dump it.

cweston said:

I may try your way with a wit I have coming up--only problem is, there's really nothing to do with that yeast strain except brew another wit. Maybe I'll keep some slurry, and if SWMBO really likes the wit (which I think she might--she likes NB's American Wheat with orange peel and coriander alot), brew another batch immediately, otherwise dump it.

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Yeah... stretching yeast is problematic if you don't use that yeast often. I do a lot of beers with London Ale and American Ale, and just one recipe that uses Irish Ale and one that uses Scottish Ale. My Irish ale sat so long in the fridge, I got scared and dumped it. The Scottish actually got a gusher infection and turned into some rancid stuff.

-walker

If I'm gonna brew in a week can I just scoop the slurry with a sanitized spoon into a sanized jar and dump it in?

If you leave the slurry in the primary and swish it around it will fall out again and any remaining beer will be on top. This is a protective barrier.

It's my understanding (I read it somewhere) that it'll stay viable for a couple of weeks (in the primary). Just be sure to put the lid back on and the airlock.

I've got a beer in the primary that I'll be racking into the secondary tomorrow. Also, I'm brewing a batch of beer tomorrow morning. So if I've understood what has been said correctly, I can just run the wort I make tomorrow morning into the carboy with the slurry left behind from the previous fermentation?

I hope this topic keeps going as I have been wanting to learn how to do this.

cweston said:

It's pretty easy to "wash" the yeast slurry out of the trub: my procedure, briefly, is...

Pour about a cup of boiled & cooled water onto the sediment in the bucket or carboy, pour it all into a sanitized mason jar, chill for an hour or so.

It will seperate into three layers: water on top, yeast slurry in the middle, trub on bottom.

I pour off the water, pour the slurry into another sanitized jar, and dump the trub.

Then chill again...

After 2-3 cycles of chilling & separating, you're left with maybe 8 ozs of slurry, which stores nicely in a sealed beer bottle.

Click to expand...

I want to try this sometime but I have to say I've harvested the yeast from the primary by pouring the trub into a 1/2 gallon growler. I make sure everything has been sanitized including the neck of the carboy and the funnel. This method has worked great for me. I leave it in the fridge with an air lock on it. The day I brew I just warm the yeast up to room temp then dump it into the wort when ready. Every one I've tried this way really took off and more importantly produced good beer.

So after I brewed my new batch of mild wort, I dumped what was left of the beer sitting on top of the sediment cake in the carboy used for the primary (after racking the old, fermented mild off) into the carboy with the new mild wort. I didn't get the full slurry into the new batch, but that didn't seem to matter since fermentation took off in less then 24 hrs.

I dumped some sterilized water onto the cake in the old carboy and decanted to a sterilized mason jar. The slurry + water has been sitting in my fridge for a couple of days now and its only seperated into two layers: water on top of yeast.

Next I plan on following the steps in Papazian to store some of the yeast under beer in a bottle with an airlock.

I'm using Wyeast London Ale 1028, by the way.

drfreeze said:

Next I plan on following the steps in Papazian to store some of the yeast under beer in a bottle with an airlock.

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Don't worry about the airlock. Just cap with aluminum foil that has been sterilized (flame OR alcohol). This is much simpler and easier to store since it is not as tall.

BTW, I always have some yeast under beer when I bottle. For my last batch I used the sediment of 2 bottles to pitch the starter.

Kai

Great info guys! I'm feeling much better about trying to be a cheap bastard and cutting down costs...

So far, what I hear are two main methods for reusing the yeast cake, one using the whole trub, and one separating the yeast from the trub. Has anyone done both and noticed a difference? Personally, I'd like to just use the whole trub since it's less work, but if it'll yield a better beer, I'd be willing to give the separation method a try.

Using the trub is the least labor intensive, but I tend to think the trub, which includes hops lends a bit more bitterness to the next brew.

I like to wash mine which leaves me with only yeast.

Hey Bill, it's Dave down here in Alabama. I've read about washing the yeast to reuse. Can you post how this is done please?

Dave R said:

Hey Bill, it's Dave down here in Alabama. I've read about washing the yeast to reuse. Can you post how this is done please?

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How's it going, Dave? What was the name of that pub? Fox and Hound? I may/may not be back to Anniston in June. I'll let you know.

Washing yeast is pretty easy, but a little time intensive. Hey, so is homebrewing, but we don't care, do we?

Many "people" (they could be the "they" they are talking about, huh?) recommend this method: All equipment sanitized (I'm not going to repeat this again). Swirl yeast in primary to mix with remaining beer. Pour yeast slurry into a (gallon) jug. Place in fridge 8-12 hours (read as overnight). There will be 3 layers of slurry, 1) Pour off water/beer liquid, 2) pour yeast into another (smaller container, 3) wash dregs down the drain. Repeat if necessary.

I do it another way: Swirl slurry in the primary to mix well. Pour slurry into a (gallon) jug. Add 2 C water (boiled and cooled) into jug (to "wash" seperate yeast from beer and dregs). Let sit for 5-15 mins. Dregs will fall out leaving cloudy water. This is your yeast in suspension. Pour off cloudy water into another container leaving sediment behind and toss down the sink (sediment, not jug). Granted, there's probably more yeast in the sediment than we usually start off with, but we'll have plenty left. Repeat process as necessary until all that remains is clean yeast. I usually convert to a 1/2 liter bottle at this point. If you let it sit for a while the water will become clear. If all you have under the water is yeast then you did a good job. Pour off most of the water. Leave enough to mix with the yeast off of the bottom. At this point you can clean/sanitize the plastic tubes the original yeast came it and pour the remaining yeast back into it and seal.

Recently, I have been toying with the idea of using the smaller glass baby food jars. I'm actually washing yeast as I'm doing this. I will be using the jars today also. You should have enough yeast to seperate into 2-3 jars and use 1 jar for another batch. Be sure to label it with the yeast type and number as well as the date. I also write in which batch(es) it (they) came from in case I ever have a problem with a bottled batch.

I went to the animal section (horses, etc.) at Farm & Fleet and purchased some 20ml syringes (without the needles) and 4 ft of 1/8" tubing. It fits perfectly on the tip of the syringe. I can use it to transfer a small amount of yeast to a container to propagate more yeast from the original container (for starters).

Later...

Thanks for the info, Bill. 'Preciate it. Hopefully maybe we can do the Pub when/if you get back down. Kinda hard with my schedule though.

...what will be, will be...

drfreeze said:

I've got a beer in the primary that I'll be racking into the secondary tomorrow. Also, I'm brewing a batch of beer tomorrow morning. So if I've understood what has been said correctly, I can just run the wort I make tomorrow morning into the carboy with the slurry left behind from the previous fermentation?

Click to expand...

Yes

But
A) there will be much more yeast than you will need for the second fermentation (just think about the quantity you pitched in the first place)

B) The trub depending on your technique may contain hop fragments etc from your last batch that may alter the flavour of your beer - I'm sure it'll be obvious if this is the case though as long as it looks like yeast and smells nice its fine in my view

I just realised - I'm so behind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I just bottled my first brew last week, and I saved some of the yeast out of the secondary. Here everyone talks about pulling it off the primary. Will the secondary yeast still work? I'm thinking it would, but what do I know? This is my first shot at this stuff. Anyone have this experience?